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3rd IX
The 3rd IX had an interesting
campaign this year.With some
very difficult fixtures as openers,
including one against a 1st team,
we found ourselves winless after
the first three outings.
Therefore it is a great testament to the
boys that they managed to turn their
season around so dramatically and finish
the rest of their season unbeaten. Perhaps
more pleasing than the results was the
style of football this year’s 3rd IX played.
The side consisted mainly of smaller, more
skilful players and this enabled them to
employ a passing game built on keeping
possession and patience.
James Allen
was
superb in the centre of midfield, often
providing the correct final ball to feed
goal-hungry strikers
George Palin
and
James Scott
.While they were unlocking
opposition defences, our back three of
Callum Lloyd, Hector Brown
and
Jack
Cross
were very difficult to break down in
defence. A 4-1 win at home against Horris
Hill 2nd team was the catalyst for a great
run of results. A last-minute equaliser away
at Ludgrove was a key moment in the
season with two very good wins following
the break for Long Leave – first at home to
Lockers Park 2nds and then away at Cothill.
Every team needs unsung heroes who do
their job quietly for the team and in
George
Lythgoe
and
Rollo Buckley
we had just
that.Their work in midfield was industrious
and provided a great platform for the rest
of our attackers to roam free.
Yi Feng Hu
scored some spectacular goals from midfield
in-between some powerful runs which caused
opposition defences all sorts of problems.
The season’s highlight came in our final
match, against Cothill. In a game in which
goalkeeper,
Thomas Russell
, was immense
the boys richly deserved their clean sheet and
a 2-0 away win over their rivals. It was a good
season on paper but a fantastic season in
reality.To a man the players worked tirelessly
in training, forged a superb team spirit and,
to quote GIJP after he had refereed one of
their matches,“played a brand of football as
impressive as any third team I’ve seen”.
SRF
3rd IX
Opposition
Result
Goals
Scorers
Us Them
Moulsford
Lost
1
2
Soundy
New College 1st XI
Lost
0
2
Lambrook
Lost
1
4
Cross
Horris Hill 2nd IX
Won 4
1
Hu, OG, Palin x2
Ludgrove
Drew 2
2
Palin x2
Lockers Park
Won 5
2
Brown H, Lloyd, Palin x3
Cothill
Won 2
0
Hu x2
“It was a good
season on paper
but a fantastic
season in reality.”
4th IX
‘A strong and ruthless defensive
unit forms the root of all
mighty footballing teams’.
Did the 2015 4ths conform to
this and other famous quotes from
an expansive directive on quality
soccer? Of course they did. Ruthless:
certainly. Many an opposition shin-bone still
winces at the thought of
Andrew Heywood’s
unflinching,‘gouge-like’ challenges on any
striker unlucky enough to stray unwittingly
onto his turf.Together with
Benson
‘he didn’t
get out of the way’
Guo
and
Patrick
‘Slider’
Hannon
, they formed an iron curtain drawn
so tight that gloveman
Oliver Newall
almost
had to beg for the chance to dive – with little
concern for his own nose - upon the ball, as if
it were a live grenade.‘If fitness be midfield’s
main love, play on!’True, for at the heart of
this team dwelled skipper
Jago Gourlay
who,
as the school’s premier long-distance footman,
put on a display of jogging, sprinting and
challenging that would tire all but the keenest
spaniel.Alongside him, the suave
Christopher
Gujadhur
was often seen to create passes
of such innovative potency that they might
have been served on the rocks with a twist
of lemon, and
Jeremy Ogbonna
managed to
move so fast up the right wing that it made
up for his being late in the first place.‘They
can win the match by their wit; by and by will
they strike’.And what wit it was displayed
by our pair of cheeky forwards –
Alexander
S u m m e r F i e l d s
2 0 1 5 – 2 0 1 6
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